


No Beauty in Perfection

by imperator_kahlo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, Episode s11e23 coda, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-14 15:05:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7176767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperator_kahlo/pseuds/imperator_kahlo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck and Amara have reunited but Team Free Will are scattered to the four winds, in a world where the supernatural is beginning to seem a little more, well, natural. </p><p>This started as a standalone fix-it, namely Chapter 2, giving God and Castiel the one-on-one time Cas deserved. I have absolutely no idea where it is going now, except that it is eventually going towards Destiel smooches. Eventually.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "You're Our Brother"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A short Cas POV of the liquor run he and Dean begin, before Sam calls them back to the bunker with a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've already read 'No Beauty in Perfection,' I'm just slotting this one in front from obvious cannon-chronological reasons.

Riding shotgun in the Impala is the first time since Lucifer was dragged out of his vessel that Cas forgets to miss his wings. The leather seat is warm under his dress pants, Dean’s hands are relaxed on the steering wheel, the whole car vibrates with the roar of the engine and Lynyrd Skynyrd is on the stereo. He gazes out the window at the oaks lining the road: if he lets his eyes go soft and loosens his grip on _now_ it almost feels like flying.

And it almost feels like home. The smell of old leather, woodsmoke, gunpowder and stale beer, warm and comforting. But Crowley’s presence is there now, in the faint whiff of cigars and hellfire; Rowena’s too-sweet perfume and the pungent crushed herbs of her kit a faint backdrop to the clean soapy smell of Dean. In the bunker, too, their presence was manifest: the quiet clinking of ice in Crowley’s perpetual glass of Scotch, a single long red hair attached to the back of Cas’ favourite armchair. The complicity with which Crowley regards Dean as innuendo slides from his smirking lips. Where Charlie’s presence in the bunker felt like a cool hand on a fevered forehead, Crowley and Rowena are the sharp end of an elbow, pushing Cas away, leaving bruises in the very fabric of the place. Jealousy niggles at him even as he soars through oak forest, eyes unfocused.

Dean reaches out and turns the stereo down, pulling Cas back to the present.

“How you doing, you good?” Dean asks. “I mean, you know, the whole Lucifer thing?”

Cas’ stomach flips and he grinds the knuckles of his right hand into his thigh. He sighs as the reminders of Crowley and Rowena push more forcefully against his consciousness. Cigar smoke. Witches’ brew. More effective, more valuable members of the team than he. “I was just… so stupid.”

“No, no, no, it wasn’t stupid. You were right,” Dean glances away from the road and towards his passenger, “you were right to let Lucifer ride shotgun, and me and Sam wouldn’t have let that happen.”

“It didn’t work,” Cas felt obliged to point out the obvious.

“Yeah, but it was our best shot, and you stepped up.”

So much for not missing his wings: Castiel’s sense of uselessness is palpable, manifesting itself as a profoundly irritating itch at the shoulder blades. “I was just trying to help.”

Dean’s voice softens, warms. “And you do help, Cas, you know. I — I guess sometimes me and Sam, we have so much going on that we forget about everyone else.”

Castiel half-smiles despite himself. “Well, you do live exciting lives.”

Dean grins, the crows’ feet around his eyes crinkling. Over the eight years the have known one another, Castiel has traced the arrival of each line on Dean’s face, each scar on the forearms revealed by rolled up shirtsleeves. The crows’ feet are his favourite, born more of humour than of pain. “Yeah, that’s one word for it,” Dean concedes. “But you’re always there, you know?” He glances at Castiel, who looks away at the last minute, turning his attention once more to the greenery they are passing. “You’re the best friend we’ve ever had. You’re our brother, Cas, I want you to know that.” Cas turns back, meets Dean’s green eyes, knows that _brother_ is, perhaps, the closest Dean will ever get to _lover_ , the deepest bond the man can imagine. 

It’s enough. “Thank you,” Cas tells Dean, as the hunter’s phone rings.

“Yo.” Dean listens awhile, finger tapping out his nervous energy on the steering wheel. “Alright, we’re on our way.” He hangs up, tosses the phone onto the seat between them. “Sam’s got something,” he tells Cas, the slightest hint of hope in his voice as he turns the Impala back in the direction they came from, reaching for the volume dial as he does so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more coda to the episode, I think, and then possibly delving into unknown territory. This is my first work for a fandom, so comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! This is scary but wonderfully fun.


	2. No Beauty in Perfection

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't bear the fact Metatron got a whole episode worth of conversation with Chuck, but the big man's fave angel was barely nodded at. I wanted to give Castiel a chance to address some of his abandonment issues, and get some sort of explanation for his resurrections. The Destiel is only briefly implied and possibly unrequited by Dean. That will probably change if I keep on writing.

Chuck was slouched in an armchair, bottle of whiskey cradled in his arms. He took several long pulls on the bottle before he became aware of Castiel standing in the doorway, his hands in the pocket of his trench coat, blue eyes fixed on Chuck with a mingled expression of despair, longing, and disappointment. When he concentrated, pushing back the cloud of smoke and peat, Chuck could see the tattered, blackened remains of Castiel’s wings hanging behind him like so much torn lace.

Chuck — God — met the angel’s eyes briefly, before dropping them to the bottle in his hands, fingers worrying the label affixed to it. He took another deep swig and without looking up said, “Castiel.”

“I scoured the Earth for you.”

Chuck laughed bitterly. “I know,” he waved the whiskey bottle theatrically in Cas’ general direction. “I wrote all about it.”  
Cas covered the distance between them in three strides and tore the bottle from his Father’s hand, throwing it across the room where it shattered against the wall. Chuck straightened in the armchair, whiskey fog clearing immediately from his eyes, the diffuse light around him brightening until Cas had to avert his eyes. “I’m not dead yet, son.”

The angel forced his eyes back to those of his father, leaning in as close as he could manage without succumbing to the temptation of either striking or embracing him. “Just tell me why.”

“Why?”

“Why you kept bringing me back when you cared so little. Why you left.”

Chuck sighed, and a new bottle of Jack appeared in his arms. Cas found himself seated in an armchair identical to Chuck’s, a glass of whiskey neat held in his right hand. The two men sat opposite one another, Chuck in his red hoodie and thrift store jacket, Cas’ blue tie twisted in a sad approximation of a Windsor knot against his spotless white dress shirt. The angel swirled the whiskey lazily around his glass once, twice, before downing it in a single draught. For a moment he was reminded of Ellen and Jo: their last night on Earth, eyes glassy but joyful as they joked over shots of tequila; Jo’s cheerful channel surfing on the radio as they drove into Carthage; the emptiness in Dean’s eyes as he told Castiel of their pointless, wasteful death. He wondered if they were together in Heaven, soulmates, or abandoned to their separate eternities.

When he raised his eyes to Chuck, the Creator leaned over and refilled Castiel’s glass before placing the bottle down on a side table with care, slowly raising his eyes to his son’s. “I fucked it all up, Castiel. I thought I had made something beautiful, but… I fucked it up.”

Castiel took a sip and thought of flight through the cosmos, sunrise over an ocean of clouds from a mountaintop in Peru, waves crashing against Australian beaches, the dizzying swirl of the northern lights. “You did make something beautiful,” he said. Thought of Dean. Of green eyes and freckles, of calloused hands and crows’ feet.

Chuck’s mouth twisted wryly. “Not this. Heaven. I thought it would be a paradise, but the angels, they…”

Cas’ hand tightened on his glass. “We disappointed you, so you left.” 

“No, I… yes. No. They were so perfect, but so… sterile. There’s no beauty in perfection.”

“You have been gone a while,” Cas’ gravelly voice was drier still.

“Oh, but they are still fucking up in the most perfectly sterile way possible. And Heaven,” Chuck took a long swig straight from the bottle, clinked it against Cas’ still half-full glass. “The Matrix, Dean called it. Pretty good movie that, actually, you seen it?” He raised an eyebrow at Castiel, whose expression didn’t change.

“Everything so fucking perfect. And so I made Earth, and humanity, and they were so flawed and so beautiful, and I condemned them to this bullshit, this,” he laughed bitterly, “this bad writing. And then eternity in the Matrix, or eternity in Hell.” Another swig. “A cruel, cruel, capricious god.”

Castiel’s lips narrowed and he snatched the bottle from God’s hand, slammed it down on the side table. “You abandoned them, too.”

“I’d done enough.”

“You did nothing,” Castiel hissed.

Chuck looked at Cas, eyes suddenly warm and clear and sober.

“I brought you back, didn’t I? And through you Dean, and Sam, and the world. Perhaps even that was too much.” He reached out and grasped the neck of the bottle but Cas held both gaze and bottle tight. 

“You could have done so much more.”

“You still don’t understand,” Chuck smiled kindly. “Or you do, but you care too much to accept it. It’s free will, Castiel. It’s why I brought you back. You were the best thing I made.” Cas’ hand flinched away from the bottle, and Chuck tightened his own grip on the neck, topping up the angel’s glass before filling the one that had appeared at his own side of the table. “All the transcendent beauty of my angels, and all the striving and questioning and sheer bloody-mindedness of humanity. What a curious creature you are.”

Cas dropped his gaze to the glass. “I’ve made so many mistakes.”

“The right kind.”

“I tried to be _God_.” 

“Not easy, is it?” Cas looked up to see Chuck smiling crookedly. “I’m dying, Cas, but that’s no bad thing. Creation is a job for the many, not for one. _I have faith_. I you, in the Winchesters, in humanity. You’ll muddle through, my son. It’s long past time for me to bow out.”

Cas tilted his head, and nodded slowly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somebody else wrote a lovely little fic in which Jo tries to get Castiel to establish his own music taste outside of Dean's 'cock rock,' but I can't find it again. It inspired my reference to her channel surfing on the way to Carthage. If anybody is aware of the author please let me know in the comments so I can give them their due credit.
> 
> Also, I've been thinking about this all day and since this is the first slash ship I have fully committed to going down with, the hell with it: I'm getting them together, if only in my head. So more chapters to follow.


	3. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the big bang that wasn't, Dean, Sam, and Cas are flung to the four winds, because Chuck forbid they should ever just get to hang out.

Riding shotgun in the Impala no longer felt like flying; the sun, so recently reborn, set, and Sam drove white-knuckled and silent through the night. From the carpark of the bar Crowley had gestured vaguely westward, an insouciant offer to zap them all back to the bunker, but Sam had refused to leave Dean’s baby alone in the world for so much as hour. 

Cas knew he should reach out to Sam, bridge the silence between them with some carefully chosen phrase of compassion, keep his final promise to Dean and somehow stitch up the part of Sam that had been ripped out even as the sun flared bright and hot in the sky. But he was dealing with his own gaping hole, and he just stared out the window and prayed fervently to a father he knew was dead and gone, for a friend — a brother — whose soul had been tossed into nothingness. Dean was lost to him, and at times during that interminable night, as the Impala glided too fast down empty highways, the angel was overcome with fury at himself: for not insisting on going with Dean, for not somehow finding away to wrap his grace around that precious soul and keep it safe from Billie.

It wasn’t until they were in the bunker, Sam descending the steps ahead of him, that Cas managed to grind out his condolences and reach out a hand to squeeze the man’s shoulder. He barely felt the flannel beneath his fingertips before it was being ripped away, the force of a thousand tsunamis sending him tumbling, all tangled limbs and broken wings, across the surface of reality. All was bright light, until it wasn’t.

***

Dean stood for a long moment after Chuck and Amara’s vessels had dissolved, light and dark twisting around one another as they drifted skyward. He was alone in the garden, blinded by the bright light of the sun refracting through the elegant glass roof. He ran a hand over his face, scrubbing at the skin, scarcely able to believe it was still intact. He was still intact. His hand reached instinctively for his phone, found empty pockets. “Fuck,” he swore, remembering he had left it, like the Impala, with Sam: a link to the few cases Dean had worked without his brother, the few contacts he had made on his own. An extra chunk of plastic and rare metals that Dean had slipped into the glove compartment next to John Winchester’s old cell, which one of the brothers would occasionally charge — more often Sam than Dean, these days — even though it hadn’t rung in years.

Dean raked a hand through his hair and turned on his heel. Looked like he’d be hoofing it to a payphone. He strode through the garden, pushed open the glass doors to the sunlight beyond.

Except it wasn’t sunlight. Even as he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the brightness, the hunter found himself in the woods. At night. He spun back to the doors, only to find more trees, more darkness. At least I brought a damn gun, he thought, comforted by the familiar weight of the pistol tucked into his waistband. The trees here pressed close and he had to push through the underbrush, heading in no particular direction until he heard her: a woman’s voice, calling for help. Dean broke into a run, pulling the gun from his jeans and holding it low by his thigh, the other hand pushing low-hanging branches aside. It was a matter of moments before he stumbled into a clearing and saw her just as he had seen her when he was four: blonde hair falling in waves over her shoulders, lacy white nightgown to her knees. 

“Mom?”

The woman took a step back at his sudden appearance, eyes wary as she instinctively staggered her feet and raised her hands in a relaxed but ready fighters’ stance Dean recognised as Samuel’s. “I don’t know you,” she said. “Who are you?”

Dean dropped heavily to his knees, tossed his gun aside. “It’s OK,” he told her. He half-laughed, half-sobbed, sending a silent thank you to Amara. “It’s going to be OK.”

Mary Winchester lowered her hands slightly. “What’s going on? This isn’t my… Something’s changed.” She took a step closer, narrowed her eyes at the man on his knees before her. “I do know you. You’re a hunter, but… that was years ago.”

Dean looked up at her, eyes brimming with tears. “We’ve had this conversation once before, but you don’t remember it. I’m your son. I’m Dean.”

Mary studied his face closely, shaking her head slowly. “You… this, it can’t be.”

“Your name is Mary Winchester. Your parents were Samuel and Deanna Campbell. You married John Winchester and had two sons, Dean and Sam. You… you used to cut the crusts off my sandwiches.” He was reaching for her now, the tears overflowing, and Mary knelt in the mud in her white nightgown and embraced him.

“But I’m dead,” she whispered. 

Dean clutched at her tightly. “You’ve been brought back.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re what I needed more than anything else.”

Mary held him tight, marvelling at the easy conviction with which she believed this grown man, all sharp edges and exhaustion, was the boy she had tucked into bed every night for four years. “Shhhh,” she murmured, rocking him as gently as she had when nightmares had broken his sleep. “Shhhh. I’m here now.” Dean’s fingers clutched at white lace, and let fall the held-back tears of three decades.

***

Mary and her eldest son clung to one another until the sun began to rise, then she pulled back, drinking in the sight of his face, tracing gentle finger tips over the lines of his face. He was older, now, than she had been when she died, but most of the lines were from hurt and worry, not age. 

“You’re a hunter,” she said sadly.

Dean looked down guiltily. “Dad raised us in the life,” he met her eyes again, fiercely. “And we got the asshat that killed you.” 

Mary smiled sadly, ran gentle fingers through his hair. “I wanted more for you.”

“I know. But that demon was coming for Sam whether we were hunting or not. At least hunting…”

She closed her eyes, rested her forehead against her son’s. “The deal I made.”

“Don’t worry about that now. The dicks upstairs and down were working towards that for generations. None of us ever had any say in the matter,” Dean voiced dripped with bitterness. He stood, offered a hand to his mother. 

“Sam’s OK, then?”

“Better than. And he’s going to be happy as a pig in a candy store to see you, so let’s hike on out of here.”

Mary looked down at her bare feet, then dubiously around. “Where exactly is here?”

Dean sat down on a nearby log, began unlacing his boots. “Beats me. Be real nice if just once I could be zapped somewhere with a map in my pocket.” He thrust the boots at Mary, who thinned her lips and refused to accept them until he shook them at her impatiently. “Come on, ma. I’ve stepped in worse. Just put the damn things on.” As his mother settled next to him to slip her feet into the oversized boots, Dean closed his eyes and unconsciously interlaced his fingers, muttering, “just give me a sec, OK?” His voice remained low. “Oh Castiel, who art royally fucking surprised right now, I’m alive. Kinda lost, but alive. Tell Sam I’m coming home, Cas. And I’m bringing… well, you two just better pick the place up a bit, yeah?” He opened his eyes to see Mary looking at him quizzically. “It’s uh, an angel thing. We sorta have one.”

Mary smiled. “An angel watching over you.”

“Yeah. Through pretty much everything,” Dean stood, making an inadvertent expression of disgust as mud squeezed through his toes. “Most of ‘em are dicks, but not Cas. At least, not any more than we are sometimes.” He squinted into the trees, turning back and forth with a speculative look on his face. “Well, that way looks as good as any, wouldn’t you say?” he said with a shrug, jutting his chin toward a section of woodland that looked marginally less overgrown than its neighbours. “Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's here's where canon-compliancy officially ends and we wander off into unknown territory, literally speaking for Mary and Dean (and for yours truly).


	4. Chicken Corner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel comes to from Toni's banishing in a pretty inconvenient part of the world, wingless and bereft of his usual lifelines.

Castiel awoke on a beach with the vague sense of having missed an important message and water lapping at his knees. The rising sun was hot on his face and frenetic dance music filled his ears. He lifted his eyes to find the beach alive with partygoers, blissed-out young men and women dancing barefoot in the sand or on upturned boxes, buckets of what he could only assume was liquor swinging from their hands and spilling onto their suntanned legs. A couple of girls walked by him, giggling and nudging one another at the incongruous sight of a trench-coated man apparently passed out in the aftermath of a Koh Phangan beach party. 

The angel ignored them, rising swiftly to his feet, socks and slacks dry by the time he had taken two strides away from the water. It had reminded him uncomfortably of the Kansas reservoir, of being marched into the water by the Leviathans that had taken control of his vessel, and so he turned his back to the ocean and marched instead through the crowds of partygoers toward what seemed to be a transportation hub of some kind. After a call to Sam went straight to voicemail, he compelled — with a touch — a young man with a motorbike to take him to the closest docks, ascertaining the banishing sigil had sent him to an island somewhere in Asia. He set his mouth grimly, pushed thoughts of broken wings from his mind and replaced them with worries about Sam. He doubted Crowley had sobered up long enough to turn on them again already, and banishing spells were not exactly Rowena’s style: she preferred to toy with her prey. As far as Cas knew, nobody else on earth had reason to know about the bunker, much less be able to break their way in. The thought of betraying Dean’s faith in Castiel’s ability to watch over Sam less than a day after the promise had been made turned Cas’ stomach; where once he would have surrendered to the sensation of speeding through one of the more spectacular parts of his Father’s creation, leaning into the curves as the motorbike careened around coastal roads, the angel simply sat and chewed on his abrupt failure.

He was uncertain who to call on. Once it would have been simple: Balthazar, Rachel, Hannah. Indeed, once it would have been simpler still: any number of the heavenly host would have responded to Castiel’s call in a heartbeat, but now the angels who yet wandered the Earth did so wingless and broken, as he. Bobby, Dean, Sam: his connections to earth seemed as utterly broken as his connection to Heaven. Claire, he thought suddenly, heart sinking. She sent occasional texts, assuring him she was safe and well with the Sheriff, Jody Mills, in Sioux Falls. Hunting, but carefully. He had responded cautiously, aware of the fragility of the bond between them, wary of overstepping his bounds.

The young man on the motorbike left him in Haad Rin’s Chicken Corner and departed without a word. Cas sent a small slice of grace with him, ensuring a profitable day to make up for the free ride he had given the angel. Cas sighed and sat wandered away from the seemingly omnipresent trance music of this island, a little further down the road toward the dock. His fingers lingered over the keypad of the phone before he dialled Claire.

“Castiel?”

“Hello, Claire,” he sighed down the line, grateful for the international minutes Sam had insisted on loading onto his phone with the loss of his wings.

“This is… kinda unexpected,” she said.

“I know. And I’m sorry. But, well. You know we fell. The angels. And I appear to be stranded. In Asia.”

“Oooo-kay. But isn’t this usually a Sam and Dean sort of situation?” Castiel was silent, searching for the right words. The human words. “They’re OK, aren’t they?” A note of panic had crept into Claire’s voice, a note Cas felt singularly incapable of dealing with.

“I’m… not sure,” he told her — it was technically the truth, after all. “But I can’t reach them. I was hoping your Sheriff Mills might be able to help me.”

Claire giggled down the line. “She’s out on a date, Cas. It is Friday night, you know. But I’ve learned a thing or two since you last saw me. Whaddaya need?”

Cas hesitated. He hated to think of Claire in the life, but what right did he have to tell her what to do? At length, he sighed. “I’m in a place called ‘Chicken Corner.’”

Claire laughed heartily. “I’m sorry?”

“Chicken Corner,” he repeated, failing to see the humour. “There appears to be quite an extensive party going on. I need to get back to the States.” In the silence between low bass beats he could hear Claire’s hands flying over a keyboard, and then an explosive burst of laughter.

“You’re in the middle of a Full Moon Party, Cas! Once in a lifetime experience, I’d say. Best get back there!”

“I’m not sure the phrase ‘once in a lifetime’ applies to an infinite lifespan, Claire.”

“Alright, alright, boring. OK, let’s see,” there was a long pause, fingers flying again. “There’s no airport, but you can get a boat to Koh Samui and I can book you a flight to Bangkok from there, then back home.” A longer silence, during which Cas carefully avoided asking Claire how, exactly, she intended to pay for these flights. “You’re gonna need to pay cash for the boat, though,” she said finally. “Need me to wire you some?” 

“Let me deal with that,” Cas said evenly. 

“Yessir,” she told him mockingly. “Right, it looks like there’s ferries every hour or so, and it takes like half an hour to Samui. I’ll book you on a midday flight. You can make it, yeah?” 

“I can.”

“Good. Get moving and I’ll text you the details.”

“Thanks, Claire,” Cas told her, voice a little less even. This time she was silent for a while. 

“No problems, Cas. Is there… is there something I can do on this end about Dean and Sam?”

The angel was silent so long Claire thought he might have simply dropped the phone and wandered off. “I don’t believe so,” he said at length, and then he really did hang up.

***

Sam awoke in chains, not for the first time. Over the hours that passed, all he felt was the dull roar of the aircraft he was tethered in — in a small, cramped cargo hold, he noted bitterly — and the waves of rage that passed through him. He couldn’t be given one fucking day to mourn his brother. Not one fucking day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playing a little bit fast and loose with the geography of Koh Phangan - Cas didn't really need to take a long motorbike ride to get from the party to Chicken Corner - but I've been on the back of a motorbike in the post-Full Moon Party dawn and I wanted him to have that experience, even if he didn't get to enjoy it.
> 
> Also pretty sure we've never seen a vesseled angel simply coerce somebody into doing something, have we? But I need to get him off that island somehow, so...


	5. Subsonic Flight

Twenty hours after mother and son had begun their trek through the woods, Dean eased the stolen Honda Civic into the bunker’s garage. “About frikkin’ time,” he muttered: the mud had dried on his bare feet and he felt desperately in need of a long, hot shower.

“Well, well, your daddy would be proud of you,” Mary smiled, walking over to the Impala and running a hand along the car’s polished hood. “She’s looking good.”

“I look after my Baby,” Dean reached in through the open passenger window and fished his phone out of the glove compartment; after a moment’s thought he pulled out his father’s as well, tossing it to Mary. “Welcome to 2016. Phones are portable now. Come on, I’ll show you how to use it once we’ve seen Sammy.” He led her through the garage and down the stairs into a long passage, practically skipping in anticipation of the look on his brother’s face. “Sammy! Hey, Sammy!” Dean called as they neared the lounge. “Cas! Come on, guys, a little excitement about my not being dead…” 

Halfway down the stairs Dean saw the angel-banishing sigil on the wall, felt a chill of dread go up his spine. He scanned the room. Blood on the floor, an armchair pushed out of position, Sam’s cell phone tossed onto an armchair. “Sam!” he called again, gesturing at his unarmed mother to stay behind him as he searched the kitchen, bedrooms, halls, library, gun range, bellowing his brother’s name again and again.

Later, Dean and Mary sat across from one another in the kitchen, Mary picking at the label on her beer bottle, Dean leaving yet another terse voicemail on Cas’ phone. “Goddammit,” he sighed as he hung up, rubbing a hand over his face and taking a shot of whisky followed by a long swig of his beer.

His mother reached over and stroked his cheek. “We’ll find them,” she told him. Dean nodded, closing his eyes, jaw clenching. “You should get some rest, sweetheart.”

“No way. We need to —”

“We need to rest. It’s four in the morning, Dean. Move that ass bedward.”

Dean nodded, a brief smile lighting up his face. “Yes, _mom_ ,” he drained his beer and stood. “Let’s get you set up in your new room.”

***

The flight from Bangkok to Los Angeles was an interminable seventeen hours. Castiel, who had once spent millennia in contemplation, flicked restlessly through in-flight movies, ground his teeth in frustration, cast furious glares at the clouds he once would have soared through at ultrasonic speeds.

And he drank. Copious amounts of whisky, less in the hope of experiencing even the slightest buzz — there were so many things to miss about being almost human — but more because the smokiness of it reminded him of Dean. 

Even as he drank and flicked and glared and mourned, Cas’ mind was working on the problem of Sam. He could remember the feel of the flannel beneath his fingers, the thud of Sam’s boots on the steps below him, a voice — British, female — and then nothing. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but he’d seen Sam and Dean do more with less. He would find Sam, and then he’d pay the Reaper Billie a visit. 

Around him, the packed plane was alive with speculation about the reborn sun. Rumours had spread about the global uptick in monster attacks and Cas was not alone in his heavy drinking: half the plane seemed to be celebrating what they were convinced was an averted apocalypse. Which, he supposed, it was, although it had not been the first. A dying sun was less easy to rationalise than freak storms or mysterious disease, apparently.

At long, long last the plane began its descent into Los Angeles, the city all lit up even in the reddish pre-dawn. As soon as the wheels hit the tarmac Cas switched his phone back on, expecting a message from Claire with an update on his next movements. There was no word from her, but rather a succession of missed calls. From Dean’s phone. The angel’s hand shook slightly as he dialled his voicemail, raised the phone to his ear.

“Cas,” the voice came, as cocksure and tormented as ever. “What a time to let the battery run down, buddy. Listen, I’m in the bunker and Sam’s gone, you’re gone… Just call me, OK?”

Message followed message followed message. Dean was alternately angry — “ _shit_ ,” down the line before hanging up — and miserable. The last had been left a few hours ago, the very slight slur in Dean’s voice suggesting he’d downed a few shots on an empty stomach. “Cas, buddy, something amazing has happened. My mother’s alive, Cas. Amara gave her back to us and now you and Sam… I just want my family, man. Please call me.”

Castiel sat for a moment, still holding the silent phone to his ear. Dean was alive. A cold, hard knot within the angel’s heart unwound and he began to laugh ecstatically, disbelievingly, immune to the strange looks being cast his way. Claire had booked him first-class, and as soon as the cabin doors were open Cas was striding up the jet bridge, calling Dean back.

The call woke Dean from tangled dreams of Sam dying in Cold Oak, of Sam hurling himself into the pit, of Sam agonising in Bobby’s panic room after Cas tore down the wall in his mind. He groaned and fumbled for his cell, knocking an empty beer bottle from his bedside table as he did so.

“Yeah?” 

“Hello, Dean.” The voice was pure Cas, all gravel and gravitas.

Dean sat up in bed, awake in an instant. “Cas? Shit, dude, what happened?”

“I could ask you the same thing, but I think Sam is the more pressing issue. Dean, I didn’t see who banished me, but it was a woman. British accent. I have no idea where Sam could be.”

“Well, where are you?”

“LAX. I was on a flight from Thailand when you called. I’m… sorry you were worried.”

Dean passed the back of his hand over his eyes, chasing away the nightmares. “It’s all good, buddy. I’m just glad you’re OK.”

“Not as glad as I am that you’re alive,” and now Dean could hear the smile in Cas’ voice.

“Well, you know me. Wait, how in the hell did you manage to get a flight back stateside?”

“I called Claire. She seems to have picked up a few of your less savoury tricks.”

“Well, Cas, if they’d pay us a living wage… So what do you need to get back home?”

“Claire was taking care of it all. I’ll keep you updated.”

“OK man, good. Just… get here. Soon as you can, yeah?”’

***

As soon as Cas could turned out to be almost ten hours. From LAX, Claire had booked him a flight to Central Nebraska Regional Airport, and when he emerged frustrated and tense from the gate he found the young woman waiting for him, along with an attractive, dark-haired woman in her forties.

“Hi, I’m Jody Mills. You must be Castiel,” she said, stretching out a hand. Cas shook it, taking an instant liking to the woman.

“Cas will do just fine,” he told her and turned to Claire, awkwardly opening his arms to embrace her, but she took a step back, held her hand out as well.

“You have a good flight?” Claire asked.

“Not exactly, but thank you for making the arrangements.”

“Must really miss those wings, hey?”

“Well aren’t you the very embodiment of tact,” Jody took Claire by an arm and guided her toward the exit, looking over her shoulder to ensure Cas was following. “I've borrowed a car from the local station but it’s still a two-hour drive to Lebanon. I called Dean, told him to expect all three of us. I’m taking some time off until we get Sam back.”

“That’s kind of you,” Cas said.

“Those boys have saved my hide a time or two, not to mention the _world_. Seems the least I can do. ‘Sides, can’t hurt to have the law on your side for once,” she winked.


	6. Of Reunions and Broken Alliances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Icky misogynistic slur in this one, seemed in character though :(
> 
> Just the one, promise.

It was dusk when Castiel, Claire and Jody arrived at the bunker, the angel keying in the twelve-digit code that slid open the cunningly hidden garage doors. Jody eased their borrowed Charger into the space between Dean’s Impala and an elegant Aston Martin.

“Holy shit,” Claire breathed, taking in the dozen or so classic cars that filled the garage. She wasn’t given long to admire them: Dean had flicked the lights on in the garage and was striding across its oil-stained floor to meet them, followed by a beautiful blonde in rolled-up mens’ jeans and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt. 

Cas and Dean met halfway across the room, holding onto to each other for dear life. Dean felt, as ever, the lean muscle of the angel’s vessel, the strength of the hand currently cupping his shoulder. He held the embrace just a little too long, then clapped Cas twice on the back and leaned back, smiling into blue eyes. 

Claire barely had time to cock a complicit eyebrow at Jody before she was crushed into a hug — “heya kiddo” — and then abandoned for Jody. “Thanks for coming, guys. And for getting him home,” Dean told them. The hunter turned back to the blonde, who lingered a small distance from the group, drew her toward the circle and kept an arm around her shoulders. “Cas, Jody, Claire,” he nodded at them each in turn, “I want you to meet my mother, Mary Winchester.” 

***

While Castiel had been making his long, slow way across the Pacific Ocean and the Western United States, Mary and Dean had piled the war room high with bunker archives. For hours they had combed the files for any mention of persons, living or dead, with reason to know the location of the bunker.

“We know there are other bunkers around the world, but it looks like most of them have been defunct for decades,” Dean said, tapping the map table. “Kevin was always trying to radio other branches, nobody every replied.” 

“It gets worse, Dean,” Jody told him. “Monsters are everywhere out there. I gotta call from Donna on the way here about a nest of … something … in Stillwater gettin’ real brazen, and demon possessions are through the roof.”

“I know,” he sighed. “We had Crowley here earlier, not that he could give two shits about helping. He’s lost all control over Hell, and I guess the monsters are just celebrating. All those beefed-up teams ready to take on the Darkness, stood up by their prom date.”

“At least the angels are quiet,” Cas said. “Seems like they’re all still locked up in Heaven.”

“Yeah, Heaven forbid those dicks could get down here and help tidy up this mess,” Dean grumbled, pouring himself another drink. “There aren’t many of us hunters left.” His thoughts turned to Jesse and César: the pair had called in earlier that day and reported they were back on the job, dealing with an unprecedented number of chupacabra attacks in New Mexico. He sighed and glanced at Cas, who was glaring down at the table as though it had personally insulted him. Dean braced his hands on the table and shifted his gaze to Jody. “Tell me the truth now, Jody, can Donna handle whatever she’s got out there?” 

“Oh yeah,” the Sheriff grinned. “That woman’s a force of nature. And she has her Deputy Doug to help out, few other trusted people on the force. She’ll keep us posted.”

“Alright. We gotta ‘nother team in Conway Springs, they’re young but they’re good. They’re heading north-west, gonna try and fill in the gaps up that way,” _goddamm_ but he’d tried to keep Krissy from the life. “Garth and his pack are keeping an eye on things in Wisconsin.”

“I’m sorry, Garth and his _pack_?” Claire interjected.

“Long story. Important thing is I ain’t leaving this bunker until I get a lead on Sammy.” Dean paused, parsing his own sentence. “Unless it’s to _get_ a lead on Sam, OK?” He looked around the assembled group, eyebrow raised. His mother only gripped his hand, nodded. Cas, too, met his eyes with the resolve Dean recognised from when they had first met, nodded his head. 

“We’re with you, Dean, that’s why we’re here,” Jody told him. “But let me and Claire handle the calls and the scanner, anything close by we’ll just nip out and deal with.” Claire nodded a little too eagerly at that and Dean cast her an exasperated look. 

“Right,” Mary spoke up. “The fact is Sam could be anywhere in the world by now. As far as we know, anybody who ever knew how to reach this bunker is friendly, dead, or a little preoccupied by losing control of Hell when Sam was taken. The other bunkers are our best lead.”

Claire quirked her mouth doubtfully. “That’s _a lot_ of international flight-time.” 

“What have you found from where he was taken?” Jody asked.

“Nothing, place was swept clean of fingerprints, no signs of forced entry. Only thing left was Sam’s blood and the blood of whoever drew that sigil,” Dean flicked the cap off another bottle of beer with his ring.

“The woman was British,” Cas reminded the assembled hunters.

“So _maybe_ we’re looking at the UK. No guarantee, though,” Claire reached for a beer of her own, got a slap on the hand from Jody for her trouble.

“We can narrow it down a little from the files; some twenty branches were definitely abandoned, mostly in Eastern Europe during the Wars. But since _this_ branch was wiped out by Abaddon, we’ve got nothing since ’58,” Dean shook his head, frustrated.

“So maybe we need to get creative on this one,” Mary was eyeing Castiel thoughtfully. “How are certain are we Castiel’s wings can’t be fixed?”

The angel frowned. “We… aren’t. Lucifer’s should have been damaged in his fall, but they healed. Of course, he was an archangel, but it’s not entirely out of the question.”

“Rowena? The Book of the Damned?” Dean’s eyes were eager.

Castiel made a look of disgust. “Nothing in that book will help me, but Rowena healed even the Darkness. Perhaps there’s a chance?”

“Alright. You know, I think she might actually still be with Crowley. I’m sure that was a touching mother-son reunion. I’ll get summoning, you guys hit the angel lore?” Dean turned back as he was leaving the room, asked Castiel, “there’s no way we can get Chuck down here again a sec, I suppose?”

The angel shook his head. “I’ve been praying. I guess wherever he and Amara are, they’re beyond my reach.”

***

“Squirrel. Twice in one day. Have you been missing our little bacchanalias?” Crowley turned in the devil’s trap, a glass of scotch held in one hand, the bottle in the other.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in the middle of getting your little kingdom back?”

“My _little_ kingdom? I think you know, my boy, nothing of mine is _little_. But you know demons, they’re like petulant children. Much better for them to run off their little sugar high upstairs, let you hunters take out some of the more bloodthirsty ones. They’ll come crawling back on their knees, don’t you worry about that,” he grinned lecherously, took a sip of Scotch. “I did save them all, after all.”

“And here I thought you waited it out in a bar.”

“It’s all in the propaganda, my poppet.”

Dean closed his eyes a moment, raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t suppose you could spare the time to help us find Sam.”

Crowley barked a laugh. “I thought I’d made myself clear, Dean. I’m not your   
sidekick and I’ve got better things to do than zap that perfect arse of yours all over the world in search of your moose of a brother.”

“Fine,” Dean ground out. “Is your mother with you?”

“That whore? Of course she is. Clung like a limpet to the most powerful player on the board.” Crowley spoke deliberately, “that would be me, Winchester.”  
Dean forced a cocky grin onto his face, “don’t suppose she’d be interested in helping an angel fix his feathers?”

“Not likely I’d pass _that_ request on, is it now Dean? I think I’d prefer your boyfriend stayed all flaccid.”

The hunter fingered the knife in his pocket, wondered what fresh monster would rise to take Crowley’s place in Hell, wondered if the devil he knew really would be able to consolidate his power again. Wondered if it wasn’t finally time to slit his throat. Would Rowena come to them in gratitude and hunger for power, or was the reconciliation between them real? After a time he sighed, hoped the decision wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass, and reached down to scratch open the devil’s trap. “Get out of my sight, Crowley.”

***

Dean returned to the library in a foul mood, collapsing on a seat at the table shared by Mary and Cas, and reaching for the top of a stack of books piled in the centre of the table. Jody was leaning against a row of shelves, listening intently to her cell and writing in her notebook. Claire was curled in an armchair with her laptop out, flipping rapidly through blogs and websites on Enochian lore. She glanced at Dean, “no luck, huh?”

The hunter shook his head. “He says Rowena’s with him, but he’d rather Cas’ wings remain clipped.” He slammed the book in front of him closed, stood again and wandered into the stacks. “I don’t suppose we’ve got anything on witch-summoning spells,” he mused.

“You scried for her once,” Cas remembered.

“Yeah, but Sam’s the one with the head for Latin incantations. I don't remember a word of that mumbo-jumbo.” He reemerged from the stacks with an armload of thick tomes, dumped them next to the first pile, and began to comb through them.

So the night passed. Claire made a run into town for pizzas; Jody alternated between witch-lore with Dean and the calls that came in from the few hunters scattered across the country; Mary, Dean, and Cas scoured the lore for anything that might lead them to Rowena or a re-winged Cas. Occasionally Mary reached out across the space between her and Dean, running a gentle hand over his cheek, still unable to believe one of her sons had been returned to her, determined to find her youngest. Dean would smile briefly, looking a decade younger, and lean into the touch, before returning his gaze to the books in front of him.

One by one, the humans drifted to bed: Mary first, laying a kiss on Dean’s head; Jody scooping up the cell phones and a few basic monster field guides to stack by her bed; Claire uncurling from the armchair and stretching like a cat, tucking her laptop under her arm and tiptoeing past Dean who had fallen asleep with his cheek resting on a particularly disturbing etching of a man in the throes of a witch-torturing spell. “Should  I wake him?” she whispered at Castiel, who shook his head. Dean would only insist on pouring himself a cup of coffee and returning to the books; better he got some sleep, however uncomfortable. Claire nodded goodnight to the angel and crept to the spare room she had been assigned.

At four a.m. Dean woke abruptly, sitting straight up in his chair and casting panicked glances around the library. Cas reached a concerned hand out and lay it over Dean’s. “You’re OK, Dean,” he murmured. “We’re in the bunker.”

Dean’s heart rate slowed and he placed a hand over Castiel’s, sandwiching the angel’s between his own and squeezing lightly. “Thank you,” he said, eyes soft as they met Cas’ too-blue gaze.

“You’re welcome, Dean.”

Before he knew what he was doing, Dean had stood and leaned over the table, planting a kiss on Cas’ stubbled cheek. He hovered there a moment, feeling a single hot breath on his neck, having the absurd thought that Castiel’s stubble was softer than his own, before springing back as if he had been burned. He pulled his hands away from Castiel’s, pushed his chair back and walked stiff-backed to the kitchen, busying himself with emptying coffee grounds from the drip filter, grinding fresh beans, refilling the machine. When he had no further excuse for activity, he simply spread his hands on the stainless steel of the kitchen bench and listened to the relentless drip, drip, drip of the coffee machine.


	7. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With an entire world to search for Sam, a cure for Castiel's broken wings would be a hell of a boon to the team assembled in the bunker. But the solution might ask too much of Dean.

When the coffee maker finally filled Dean poured two mugs of hot, black coffee and carried them back out to the library, thrusting one toward Cas with barely a glance. He studied the book in front of him carefully. “Find anything?” he asked, in as casual a voice as he could manage.

Castiel sighed and pushed his chair a few inches from the table. “Perhaps.”

When Dean looked up at him the angel looked so wounded and confused his heart clenched. “Well?” he said, more brusquely than he had intended.

The angel recoiled as Dean had reached across the table to strike him. He looked away for several long seconds, before standing and leaning against a row of shelves. He nodded at the collection of books open in front of him, although the scratchings on their pages made no sense to Dean. “We angels were made with a purpose. To be soldiers. To fight and to protect. Our grace allows us to do that: to smite the unworthy, to heal those who serve as our vessels and to heal humans, whom we protect. But as soldiers we are… expendable, and our grace cannot heal our true forms. I expect that is why Lucifer was able to heal himself. The archangels were rather less expendable.”

Dean mouth tightened as the angel referred to himself, again, as expendable. “I thought you said you found something _useful_.” Cas glared at him and the hunter pushed his chair back, lifted his sock-clad feet to the only spare patch of space in the table in a gesture of feigned nonchalance, taking a long sip of coffee. He gestured for the angel to continue.

“Our true forms, like everything around us, were created of God’s Will. His Love. A human can recover from illness or injury without grace, a plant can be revived with a touch of sun and a little water, all because they exist within a system that was ‘powered-up’” — Dean failed to appreciate the sarcastic little air-quotes, knowing Sam would have received a more detailed explanation — “by His Love.”

“And?” 

“And angels exist outside this system, but if one could be drawn in, I think a more complete healing process would take place. It’s all highly theoretical at this stage, of course, and I think a witch’s presence would speed the process, but —”

“But you fell before, you were almost human, doesn’t that mean —”

“I was cut off from Heaven, yes, but I wasn’t fully admitted into this system. I stood apart from both. I think there’s a way I can… well. _We_ can do it differently.”

Dean quirked an eyebrow.

“Love,” Castiel told him simply, and for a long moment his eyes held Dean’s, full of something that terrified the hunter.

“Love,” Dean repeated flatly, dropping his feet from the table.

“It’s what holds this system together. It’s what can pull me into it.” 

“So we need to find you a girlfriend,” Dean joked weakly.

“Dean.” The hunter took a long pull of coffee, leaped to his feet and made for the kitchen. But Cas was too fast for him, stepping between the hunter and the door to the kitchen, eyes determined. “I’ve heard your half-dreamt prayers in the middle of the night, Dean. I never wanted to push you, but...”

Dean’s eyes held Cas’, dropping to the angel’s lips as he involuntarily licked his own. His eyes flicked up again, the flash of lust replaced by lost little boy. “You… heard those?”

Cas reached out slowly, carefully running the back of his left hand down the hunter’s face until he cupped his chin. The angel nodded, longing to close the inches between them but wary of Dean’s tense stance. He felt like he had reached out and touched a wild deer. But then Dean’s eyes dropped again, and he leaned in, breath mingling with his angel’s, eyes closing as he pressed his closed lips against Cas’. For a moment they stood, joined only at the lips and by Castiel’s hand on Dean’s chin, but then the hunter groaned and wrapped his arms around the angel, one palm resting on Cas’ lower back and pulling him closer, the other cupping the back of his neck. Cas’s left hand opened, palming Dean’s stubbled cheek, while his right hand carded through the hunter’s dirty-blond hair. Dean’s mouth opened first, sucking gently on Cas’ lower lip before running his tongue along the upper. Cas moaned as the kiss deepened, let himself be pushed through the open door to the kitchen and lifted onto the stainless steel bench, Dean forcing himself between the angel’s open knees. The hunter planted soft sloppy kisses in a line along Cas’s jaw, the hand on the back of his neck rising to comb through soft dark hair. 

And then a door slammed somewhere behind them in the bunker, and Dean froze, and before Castiel could tighten his grip the deer was gone, skittering off through the empty halls in panic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The theology and metaphysics of this are pretty shaky: too shaky, or do the smooches make up for it?


End file.
